5 Ways to Hack Your Phone Bill

Guess what? It’s not just all in your head. Your cellphone bill is too high. In 2011, the average American household spent $1,226 on cellphone service—up $116 from 2007. So the cost isn’t going to go down anytime soon, unless you do something about it. So here are five things you can do to solve your dilemma.

1) Switch to prepaidPeople flock to two-year contracts because they come with heavily-subsidized phones. (Nobody wants to pay $550 for an iPhone, after all.) But those plans could actually be costing you quite a bit, whereas switching to a prepaid, contract-free plan can save hundreds of dollars each year, depending on which carrier you switch from.

Virgin offers a 300-minute prepaid plan with unlimited data and messaging for just $35 per month. That means even if you pony up $550 for an iPhone 5, you’ll pay $1,390 over the course of two years. Sprint’s similar contract plan (450 minutes with unlimited data and texting) costs $80 per month, but while the subsidized iPhone 5 is just $100, that still adds up to $2,020, or $630 more than Virgin. And Virgin runs on Sprint’s network, so the service is the same.

Plus, contract-free carriers will try to keep you around in contract-free ways. Virgin offers free music festivals and concerts, rather than early cancellation fees, to inspire its users to stay loyal.

2) Spend minutes wiselyAccording to a recent survey, more than 85 percent of people claim to be put on hold every time they call a business. And if those are “anytime” (daytime) minutes, which they probably are, they’re not cheap. To cut down on automated messages wasting your minutes, use websites and apps to book appointments: OpenTable (opentable.com) for restaurant reservations and ZocDoc (zocdoc.com) for doctor’s appointments. If you’re booking an appointment for a Groupon (groupon.com) deal, you can use Groupon’s online booking service; if you want to check out local movie times, Fandango (fandango.com) has you covered.

3) Seek out discountsIf you work for a large corporation, you may qualify for a sweet wireless discount. Many large companies have negotiated discounts of up to 25 percent off monthly phone bills for their employees, though you may need to switch carriers to get the discount. Not sure if your company’s on the list? Confidently ask the wireless representatives anyway, and they may be able to find something. Note that these discounts are typically only applied to the main line of a family plan, so make sure you put your most expensive phone (say, the one with unlimited data) in that prime position.

4) Hack your voicemailVoicemail isn’t free. If you call your voicemail during the day, it actually costs you peak minutes. Surprising, considering most people view voicemail as an extension of their phone, and not a paid service. Luckily, there are a couple of ways to avoid this ridiculous charge. The first is an age-old trick: Calling your voicemail from a landline or other mobile number. Just dial your phone number and hit the star key when you hear your voicemail message kick in. Enter your voicemail PIN, and you can check your mail free of charge.

Another trick: Use Google Voice. Google Voice offers regular and visual voicemail, though its speech-to-text functionality isn’t fantastic. With Google Voice, you can read messages, or you can download audio clips over Wi-Fi or cellular. Not only are the semi-readable messages useful for quickly screening important calls, but neither option wastes minutes.

5) Dump txt plans completelyCut back on texting costs with free texting apps. Some of the best include Pinger (iOS and Android; pinger.com), textPlus (iOS, Android, Windows Phone; textplus.com), and WeChat (iOS, Android, Windows Phone; wechat.com). All of these apps function just like regular texting apps, right down to the instant notifications, but they use data instead of texting. So you can nix the texting allotment from your plan and rely solely on data and Wi-Fi to get your 160-character message fix. Pinger even gives you your own texting phone number, so you can text smartphones and non-smartphones alike.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Men's Health participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.